General thoughts from a virus/spyware researcher.
Given Magnum’s one-train operation, and the fact I head to Cedar Point mainly to ride it, it does not make sense to spend the money and use the vacation time to head to the park knowing that I won’t be able to fully enjoy it. If it turns out the other two trains are back in time for CoasterMania, well, that’s how it goes sometimes, but I’m going to play it safe.
Let’s see if a trip in September is possible. If not, I’ll still be there closing weekend.
So, we have our answer on why Magnum had a train slip through the safeties: rain [clickondetroit.com]. Rain made the ride wet, and that caused the train to not stop where it should have. Cedar Point is already working on resolving the issue. Effective immediately, rain is now prohibited from falling during park hours.
Ok, you got me. They really didn’t ban rain. That’s ludicrous, and so is blaming the rain. The ride has gone round and round for 18 years. Something tells me, it rained now and again during that time. I’ve been on the ride in the rain, and snow (brrr!), and hail (ow!). Never had a problem with rain before. But, I do think it did play a role in what happened.
While at the park opening weekend, now and again, trains were overshooting the safeties. In some cases when the train needed to come to a complete stop at the safeties, it would not stop completely in the brake area. Instead, over half the train made it past the brake area. Now, I started power-riding Magnum (that’s going on the ride over and over throughout the day) in 2003, and I’ve never seen this before.
So, we have trains overshooting the safeties. Let’s add some rain. Friction brakes do not work as effectively when wet. Result: train slides through without stopping.
I’m not a roller coaster expert (despite riding them a lot). I don’t have insider info on what happened. I don’t know fully what happened. But, based on what I do know, what I’ve observed, and what happened, “rain on the tracks” is not the root cause. When I go back to the park, if trains no longer overshoot the safeties, I won’t be surprised. I’ll just know that what was really wrong was fixed. And it won’t be due to a ban on rain.
When I went to Cedar Point opening weekend, I took over 5 dozen photos. From some of those I cropped out sections for the header image at the top of the blog. You’ll rotate through them while you’re browsing the site, or if you just hit refresh. Their presentation is random, so you might see some familiar ones, and then suddenly a new one shows up.
Also, when I switched to the K2 theme, the weather didn’t quite render like I wanted it to. It was a bulleted list. I took a bit to look into getting rid of that, and now the bullets are gone. Looks nicer this way. I think so anyway. 
Unfortunately, yesterday’s incident on Magnum overshadowed Maverick’s opening. IntaRide shipped the replacement track, it was installed, the ride tested and certified, and is now open. Given that I’ll be at the park for CoasterMania, I’ll have to grab a ride on it and tell you what I think.
Magnum is also reportedly running today with only one train (per the thread I linked to yesterday). Rumor has it that the park will release a statement within the next few days regarding what happened. I hope it includes information on when the ride will be back to normal.
I just saw this via PointBuzz [pointbuzz.com - gives your pop-up blocker a workout] From Cedar Point’s Public Relations department, two Magnum XL-200 trains bumped today. From what’s been discussed in a thread [pointbuzz.com - again, pop-up alert] about this, it was raining out at the time.
The ride is closed while they investigate, and will not reopen until the cause is determined.
As is probably no surprise to most of you, I’m approaching 1,500 tracked lifetime rides on Magnum (current count, of those rides I tracked, is 1,452), and when I ride, any strange sound, bump, and so on, I notice, just as the rest of us regular Magnum riders do. I have a theory about why this happened.
Let me describe the ride’s blocks. When a coaster is designed, it is divided into blocks. The goal is only one train shall occupy a block at any given time. For Magnum, the “stop spots” to prevent two trains from occupying the same block are at the top of the lift hill, the brakes after you complete the ride circuit (known as the safeties), the spot where they stop the train prior to entering the station and can transfer trains on and off the main track (known as the readies), and the station itself. If a train has not cleared the stop spot ahead of the one it’s approaching, the train stops there.
What reportedly happened today? Magnum has three trains. One train was in the station, another at the readies. When the third train completed the main ride circuit and reached the safeties, it did not come to a complete stop (but, on the bright side, the safeties did slow the train down to less than 10 mph/16kph). With the next set of brakes being at the readies, and a train already occupying this spot, the two trains bumped.
At the thread I linked to earlier earlier, there’s been some posts regarding the need to redo Magnum’s brakes. After 18 years of incident-free service, I fail to see how the entire braking system needs redesign. I do, however, believe the reason that this happened needs determining, and actions to prevent it from happening are in order (duh). While I am no roller coaster expert, my guess is due to the rain, the effectiveness of the brakes was lower than normal, allowing the train to slide through without stopping. One of two outcomes here: Magnum will not operate in the rain, or the safeties will receive either better brake pads or squeeze the brakes harder. Maybe both will happen. Maybe neither and instead something else. We’ll see.
No matter the change, Magnum will continue to provide the thrills and enjoyment I’ve received for years past, and I’ll continue to enjoy it for years to come. And, yes Mom and Dad, I haven’t forgotten… “Be careful on that ride.” I’ll just put myself in the brace position I keep reading about every time I fly if this ever happens again while I’m riding it.
Trees. If you’re allergic to trees, then you understand. If you’re allergic to trees and live in the Pacific Northwest, your understanding is much deeper.
While grass and weeds are also somewhat involved right now, trees by far (Birch the primary culprit) are causing my allergies to, well, react. This is one of the few times during the year when I wind up on loratadine (Claritin), and possibly pseudoephedrine (the decongestant in Claritin-D) depending on how congested I am. But right now, it’s really bad, and I blame it on the lack of rain, the day-long drizzle that usually happens for most of the year. Given there’s nothing to wash the pollen out of the air, it all floats around, and causes me misery.
At least the loratadine was keeping things under control until a few days ago. Adding the decongestant, while slow to take full effect, is already beginning to make things better.
Do you have allergies? Specifically, to mildew, mold, dust mites, cats, trees, ragweed, and/or cats? I usually try to keep indoors during high pollen periods, but in this area, with no air conditioning, when my bedroom hits 80 F from daytime warming, I reluctantly open the window. I do have an air filter, but when the window’s open, that’s basically pointless. How do you deal with your allergies?
It’s here and gone already. I had a wonderful time. Rode Magnum 71 times, a little low compared to last year but still a blast. Maverick looks great, and I’m glad I was able to see (and take pictures of) the heartline roll before they started removing it [cedarpoint.com]. Saw many friends while at the park, and also made some new friends. Oh, and the weather, especially Monday, was really nice. I very much enjoyed wearing shorts and a t-shirt, especially while riding.
And I already miss it.
I haven’t figured it out 100% yet, but I’m headed back mid-June for Coastermania, an event Cedar Point holds for coaster enthusiasts. I’ve gone a couple times now, and while I can’t make the early morning entry (jet lag), the extra nighttime riding on Magnum is just great.
Sunday, after the park closed for the night, a group of us went to Chet & Matt’s for some pizza. On closing day, it’s somewhat the unwritten tradition to head here for some pizza and for some last stories and goodbyes before splitting up for the winter months. I always order the Panther’s, which has 5 meats on it (not piled on or anything like that, just 5 different ones ’sprinkled’ on). It’s good pizza, and a nice atmosphere to go hang out in and talk coasters for a bit.
I’ve never really had a page up just providing some of my background/history, so I wrote one up. You can access it from the “About Me” link along the header image on top. I’m interested to hear if you think I missed anything in there, provided too much boring detail, or any other thoughts you have. I disabled comments in the About Me page, but this blog post allows them.
Ok, going in and clearing out 50 spam messages about cars… I have better things to do. There’s an anti-spam plugin named Akismet [akismet.com] that I just now took the time to turn on. I also threw a counter on the sidebar so that its effectiveness can be seen by everyone. Hopefully, the amount of spam comments I have to manually block will be dramatically lower.
In a blog post [cedarpoint.com], as well as on their main page and the Maverick-specific page, Cedar Point announced Maverick, their 17th roller coaster, will not open this Saturday when the park opens for the 2007 season.
Am I upset? Well, a little. I was looking forward to riding something I’ve never been on before. It isn’t anything that would cause me to cancel my trip or anything, as while I mainly ride Magnum XL 200 while I’m at the park, even when Magnum’s not running I still have a great time. Of course, the complaining [pointbuzz.com - take your popup blocker with you] already started. By the way, if you go to that link and discover pointless complaining about both the ride’s delay and about people’s grammar and spelling, it’s expected, and one of the reasons I do not participate in any “conversations” over there. And the advertisements, sheesh! “In your face” doesn’t fully describe the pop-under experience.
Back to Maverick. Right now it’s expected to open in June, which of course is subject to change. I plan on going in June for CoasterMania, and hopefully it’ll be ready to roll then.
In any case, 3 days 9 hours from now, I’ll be walking through the gate and ready to ride!
Date: 10/04/2008
